James Daunt, the managing director of Waterstones has lashed out at online
rival Amazon.

Mr Daunt, who joined Waterstone's in June, said: "They never struck me as being a sort of business in the consumer's interest. They're a ruthless, money-making devil."

In an interview with the Independent, Mr Daunt insisted that there is a place for bookshops, despite the dominance of online bookseller Amazon.

He said: "The computer screen is a terrible environment in which to select books. All that 'If you read this, you'll like that' – it's a dismal way to recommend books. A physical bookshop in which you browse, see, hold, touch and feel books is the environment you want."

His comments echoed those he made in an interview with the Telegraph in October, in which he described Amazon as "dispiriting" and "utterly utterly ruthless".

Waterstones was bought by Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut this summer and Mr Daunt was hired to turn around a pattern of falling sales as online competition grows.

"You'll walk into a Waterstone's and there'll be a bit of the shop where you can look at e-readers, play with them. We're inventing one of our own – perhaps we'll call it the Windle – and we're working on the Barnes & Noble approach. They've embedded their own e-book, called the Nook, within their bookshops and have succeeded in taking market share from the Kindle," he said.

Amazon has recently launched a new version of its Kindle reader in the UK - and several new Kindles in the US, including a tablet device, the Kindle Fire.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO and founder, recently told the US magazine Wired: "There are two ways to build a successful company. One is to work very, very hard to convince customers to pay high margins. The other is to work very very hard to be able to afford to offer customers low margins. They both work. We're firmly in the second camp."

He added: "We'd rather have a very large customer base and low margins than a smaller customer base and higher margins."

In a comment that highlights the difference between Amazon's approach and Mr Daunt's plans for Waterstones, Mr Bezos said: "Our vision of a perfect customer experience is one in which our customer doesn't want to talk to us."